R.I.P. Al Jaffee

R.I.P. to famed MAD Magazine artist Al Jaffee, who died April 10, 2023 at the age of 102 (!). Sad of course, but that's a pretty darned good run.

Rather than reinvent the wheel here, I'll just repeat this entry I posted about him a couple years ago:

I post a lot of obits in this blog, typically of celebrities who touched my life in some way. So I thought it'd be nice to do the opposite for a change, and post a noteworthy birthday instead.

Happy Birthday to cartoonist/illustrator Al Jaffee, who turned a whopping ONE HUNDRED YEARS OLD on March 13, 2021. Holy cow!

Jaffee's work spanned an astonishing 78 years (!), from 1942 through his retirement in 2020! In fact he holds the Guinness World Record for the longest ever career as a comic artist!

Jaffee was born in Savannah, Georgia to Jewish immigrants from Lithuania. He studied at the New York's High School Of Music & Art in the late 1930s, along with future MAD alumni Will Elder, Harvey Kurtzman, John Severin and Al Feldstein (now THAT'S a senior class!).

Jaffee's career began in 1942, when he began drawing for Joker Comics, as well as Timely and Atlas Comics (the precursors to Marvel). When WWII broke out, he worked as an artist for the military. It was during this period that he changed his name from Abraham to Allan.

After the war Jaffee returned to Timely Comics, where he worked with Stan Lee, and edited the company's humor and teen books. He then wrote various newspaper comics for several years.

Jaffee was hired by MAD Magazine in 1955, one issue after the publication switched from comic book to its more familiar periodical format. He left when editor Harvey Kurtzman quit, but returned in 1958. He regularly worked for the magazine until it folded in 2020.

Over the decades, Jaffee created many of MAD's most popular regular features, including his Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions.

He also wrote and drew numerous MAD Inventions pages, which featured hundreds of humorous— yet oddly practical— contraptions and ideas.

Of course Jaffee's best known for his MAD Fold-Ins that graced the back page of the publication. As you no doubt are aware, the fold-ins reveal a hidden image when the page is creased. The very first fold-in was intended as a one-off gimmick— a satire of Playboy's centerfold pull-outs.

Readers reacted so strongly though that he was asked to do another, and before long it became a regular feature. It appeared in every issue but one from 1964 to 2020. According to Jaffee, each fold-in took him approximately two weeks to design and draw! Wow!

There was a period in my teens when I bought MAD religiously, and I vividly remember trying to gently bend or warp the fold-in, so I could see the hidden image without permanently creasing the page. I like my reading material to stay pristine, thanks!

So Happy Birthday, Al Jaffee! Here's to one hundred more!

R.I.P. Boss From The Eighth Circle of Hell

Back in the 1990s I worked as a graphic designer at a marketing agency, for a rather colorful Boss. A Boss who knew little or nothing about the design process, and whose every move and decision made all our jobs that much harder. A Boss who came preloaded with so many outrageous quirks and bizarre character traits that it seemed like he stepped off the set of a hackneyed sitcom.

I wrote a series of posts years ago, outlining just a few of my experiences with this Boss— mostly as blog content, but also in an attempt to exorcise him from my psyche.

Alas, I was informed that the Colorful Boss died this past November.

I'm honestly not sure I feel about that. I guess I'm as saddened as I am about the death of any fellow human, but... dear lord, this was without a doubt the most annoying man I've ever encountered. Everything about him exasperated me— his personality, his managerial style, his mannerisms, his way of dressing and of course his voice. His horrible, grating voice that started droning the second he entered the building and never stopped until he left.

I once realized he was somehow annoying me even while sitting completely still and not saying anything. It was like his head was broadcasting "annoying waves," that only I could pick up. He was physically and mentally exhausting to be around.

And against all logic and reason his company is still around and fairly successful, despite his insane ideas and clueless management. The only way that's possible is if he made a pact with Satan, who finally came to collect his due a couple months ago.

Anyway, in honor of the Colorful Boss, here're the links to the posts I wrote about him. Enjoy my pain:

• The Interview

• The Superhero

• Email

• Color Correction

• Mexican Food

• Ear Drops

• The Flyer

• Restroom Surprise

• The Exercise Bike

• Chough

• The Wardrobe

And lastly, a special Bonus Boss From The Eighth Circle Of Hell Tale that I just remembered:

Back In the 1990s I worked as a graphic designer at a marketing company, for a rather colorful Boss. This was a man who came up in the 1960s, long before office computers and desktop publishing were a thing.

One day he came tearing out of the accountant's office, screaming at the top of his lungs, "Watch out, everyone! Tammy's got a fungus on her computer! Don't get anywhere around her!"

Of course he meant she had a virus on her computer. One that none of us designers were in any danger of catching, since Tammy had a PC and we all worked on Macs. Yet the Colorful Boss was convinced he was going to have to get her computer disinfected and fumigate her office, to prevent the spread of her deadly electronic fungus.

Seriously, that really happened.

R.I.P. Norm MacDonald

Well this thoroughly sucks. I just heard that comedian and actor Norm MacDonald has died, at the much too young age of sixty one.

This miserable goddamned world of ours. We truly are living in the darkest timeline.

This one hit hard, as I was a fan of MacDonald and have enjoyed his work for years. His dry, deadpan humor was right up my alley, and I gotta admit he influenced my writing and delivery quite a bit. He'll definitely be missed.

The Canadian-born MacDonald began his career as a standup comedian in Ottawa in the mid 1980s. He enjoyed moderate success there, but things really took off for him when he appeared on Star Search in 1990.

After that he was hired as a writer on Roseanne in 1992. He left after one season to join Saturday Night Live.

It was on SNL that MacDonald really rose to fame, as the anchor of the Weekend Update segment. He relentlessly bashed celebrities like Michael Jackson, labeling him a pedophile, as well as OJ Simpson, who he regularly referred to as a cold-blooded murderer. 

Nervous NBC executives eventually pulled MacDonald from the anchor chair, as they worried his controversial remarks would damage the show's ratings. 

Later on MacDonald starred in a series of Celebrity Jeopardy parody sketches on SNL, in which he did a passable impression of Burt Reynolds (or "Turd Ferguson," as he called himself). Oddly enough, even though the sketches took place in the present day, MacDonald played the 1970s version of Reynolds. His impression was so much fun that I don't think anyone noticed!

Reportedly MacDonald pushes for the Jeopardy sketches solely so he could do his Burt Reynolds impression!

Most recently MacDonald worked on The Orville, where he voiced Yaphit, an alien crewmember who's an amorphous green blob.

According to Orville creator Seth MacFarlane, he cast MacDonald in the part without even auditioning him. He reportedly called MacDonald and asked, "Norm, you want to be a blob?" To which MacDonald replied, "Hell yeah, I'll be a blob." And the rest is sci-fi history!

Unfortunately, due to labor-intensive animation and rendering times, Yaphit's too expensive to include in every episode, so he only appears in a few select scenes. Pity, as MacDonald gives the character quite a bit of personality and emotion. Quite a feat for a blob that doesn't even have a face!

Jesus Christ! It just occurred to me that it's been so long since The Orville last aired (nearly TWO AND A HALF YEARS) that the goddamned cast is starting to die off!

R.I.P. Enzio Sciotti

This obit's a little late, but sometimes these things happen.

R.I.P. to Enzio Sciotti, who died April 11 at the age of 76. 

Born in Rome to a family of painters, Sciotti was a talented and prolific illustrator. When he was just sixteen, he got a job illustrating movie posters for the booming Italian film industry, specializing in the horror genre. 

Over the course of his six decade career, he painted over 3,000 movie posters. His work graced the films of numerous Italian horror powerhouses, including Lucio Fulci, Dario Argento and Lamberto Bava.

Sciotti's name may not have been a household word, but anyone who visited a video store in the 1980s and 1990s will instantly recognize his work. His bold, lurid artwork adorned the cover of many a videotape in the horror/sci-fi section. 

He also had the amazing ability to take even the worst low budget film and make it look like the most awesome movie ever. Many's the time I rented a tape solely because his art sold me on  it. Video stores of that era owe a HUGE debt of gratitude to Sciotti for increasing their sales.

Sciotti seemed to have a thing for Sam Raimi's Evil Dead films, as he illustrated posters for all three.

I always assumed this was a manipulated photograph. I'm gobsmacked to find out it's one of Sciotti's illustrations.

That structure in the back looks more like a haunted house than a castle to me, but, eh... I'll allow it.

It's not labeled, but this is the poster for George Romero's Knightriders.

The Italian poster for Near Dark (or Dark Approaches, as it was known there).

Although he primarily illustrated horror posters, Sciotti dabbled in sci-fi as well.

He also painted numerous action movie posters, which again, always looked more exciting than the actual film.

Celebrity Death Catch-Up

2020's been a miserable year for pretty much everyone on Earth. But it's been especially brutal in the area of celebrity death. Sure, it's a given that every year's gonna see its share of famous fatalities, but 2020's been especially cruel in the number and caliber of celebrity deaths.

Unfortunately I've been too busy to acknowledge many of them over the past few months, so I'm playing catch-up here and mention the deaths that had an impact on me.

• Sean Connery— died October 31 at age 90.

Connery was of course best known for portraying James Bond, and became the gold standard to which all other actors in the role are compared.

That wasn't his only role though, by a long shot. He starred in at least sixty seven movies over the years, including 1974's Zardoz. You haven't lived until you've seen a forty-something Sean Connery strutting around the post-apocalyptic landscape in a red diaper and black hip boots. It's definitely worth checking out.

Connery famously turned down a shocking number of high profile roles in the later years of his life. 

In 1993 he was offered the role John Hammond in the original Jurassic Park, but passed on it when the studio balked at his asking price.

In 1999 Connery declined the part of Morpheus in The Matrix, because reportedly he "didn't understand the movie's narrative."

In 2001 he said no to playing Dumbledore in Harry Potter And The Sorcerer's Stone, because he "had no interest in joining a children's film about wizards."

Also in 2001, Connery was tapped to play Gandalf in The Lord Of The Rings trilogy. He turned it down, because once again he claimed he "never understood the script." OK, I can see someone his age not understanding a cyberpunk tale like The Matrix, but LOTR seems pretty straightforward. 

Connery's refusal to play Gandalf ended up costing him a whopping $450 MILLION, as the role came with cut of the franchise's sizeable box office take! D'oh!

Finally in 2003 he was asked to play the role of Allan Quatermain in The League Of Extraordinary Gentlemen. Supposedly he didn't understand this script either (???), but accepted the part anyway because he was afraid if he kept refusing offers that studios would eventually stop asking him.

The League shoot was a tumultuous one, as Connery didn't get along with inexperienced director Stephen Norrington. Things were so bad on set that after filming wrapped, Connery retired from acting (Norrington vowed he'd never direct again as well!)!

Sounds like he either needed a new agent or to seek help in choosing roles!

• Alex Trebek— died November 8 at age 80.

Born in Canada, Trebek move to the U.S. in 1974, and became a popular game show host. He began hosting a revival of Jeopardy in 1984, and stayed with the show for a whopping thirty seven years!

In March 2019 he announced he'd been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, a particularly insidious illness with a very low survival rate. If anyone could beat the disease it would be Trebek, and I was honestly hoping he make it. Alas, it wasn't to be.

By the way, how odd is it that the real-life inspirations for this SNL sketch died within a week of one another?

 

• David Prowse— died November 28 at age 85.

Prowse became famous for starring at the body of Darth Vader in a little sci-fi film called Star Wars. Perhaps you've heard of it?

While the imposing 6' 6" Prowse inhabited Vader's costume, the Sith Lord's voice was provided by actor James Earl Jones. This was a sore spot with Prowse for years, as he deeply resented the fact that his lines were dubbed in post.

If you've ever heard Prowse speak though, you'll understand why George Lucas replaced his dialogue. Darth Vader would never have had the impact he did if he spoke with Prowse's thin, reedy voice.

 

In 1968 Prowse made a guest appearance on The Beverly Hillbillies, in the Season 7 episode Coming Through The Rye. This was the season in which Jed inherits an English castle, so the Clampett clan flies to Great Britain to check it out.

While there, they encounter Emlin MacGregor (played by Prowse), an imposing Scotsman wearing a kilt. Of course this causes the Clampetts to think he's a particularly ugly woman. Com-O-Dee!

Additionally, Granny sees strolling around loudly playing his bagpipes. Naturally she thinks he's drinking booze from a giant straw in a large water skin, and that the music is him moaning and wailing.

• Richard Corben— died December 2 at the age of 80.

Corben's name may not be a household word, but if you ever read Heavy Metal magazine in the 1980s, you'll instantly recognize his work.

Corben's comics were filled with buxom babes and ripped males— most of whom cavorted nude across his bizarre landscapes.

He was also famous for his garish use of color and mastery of texture. I used to stare at his work for hours, trying to figure out just how he managed to do it!

•  David L. Lander— died December 4 at the age of 73.

Lander of course played Squiggy, who, along with his pal Lenny, consistently annoyed the gals on Laverne & Shirley. 

Sadly, Lander was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 1984. Amazingly he kept the disease a secret for years, pretending to be an alcoholic to explain his symptoms. Apparently he thought casting directors would hire a drunk, but would shy away from someone with MS. Odd!

He finally went public with his diagnosis in 1999, and the disease eventually lead to his untimely death. 

• Dawn Wells— died December 30 at age 82.

Ouch. This one really hurts. As a kid I was a big fan of Gilligan's Island, and loved Wells as Mary Ann. Her natural beauty and "Girl Next Door" charm made her far more appealing than the more sophisticated Ginger on the show.

There's an urban legends that Wells is the only Gilligan's Island castmate who profited from the series. At the time she was cast as Mary Ann, actors typically received residuals for the first two or three airings of a series.

Wells was married to talent agent Larry Rosen at the time, and he reportedly talked her into asking for a clause in her contract that would grant her residuals in perpetuity. The producers supposedly agreed, never thinking the show would still be airing regularly SIXTY YEARS later.

As a result of this, Wells allegedly made millions off the show.

Sadly, that's all bushwah. According to Wells, she was paid $700 a week on the show (!) and never got ANY residuals!

Here's a partial list of all the famous people we lost in 2020. Some of them I wasn't aware of, and in other cases it's been such a long, grueling year I'd forgotten they passed. It's a long list:

Neil Peart (drummer for Rush)

Buck Henry (writer/actor)

Terry Jones (member of Monty Python)

Kobe Bryant (of the LA Lakers, natch)

Kirk Douglas (he was a whopping 103 when he died!)

Orson Bean (actor/comedian/game show celebrity)

Robert Conrad (star of The Wild, Wild West TV series)

Sy Sperling (founder of The Hair Club For Men)

Katherine Johnson (mathematician in the early days of NASA, subject of the movie Hidden Figures)

Clive Cussler (adventure author)

James Lipton (host of Inside The Actors Studio)

Max von Sydow (star of The Exorcist, among many other films)

Lyle Waggoner (of The Carol Burnett Show and Wonder Woman fame)

Kenny Rogers (country singer)

Curly Neal (of the Harlem Globetrotters)

Bill Withers (singer of the hit Lean On Me)

Honor Blackman (the Bond girl in Goldfinger)

John Prine (singer/songwriter)

Mort Drucker (artist for MAD Magazine and the greatest caricaturist to ever live)

Brian Dennehy (character actor)

Irrfan Khan (Indian actor who appeared in Life Of Pi and Jurassic World)

Little Richard (pioneering musician, singer and songwriter, as well as one of the first crossover black artists)

Jerry Stiller (comedian/actor, best known as Frank Costanza on Seinfeld)

Phyllis George (former Miss America and female sportscaster)

Fred Willard (character actor and frequent TV guest star)

Ken Osmond (aka Eddie Haskell of Leave It To Beaver)

Christo (artist whose works consisted of wrapping buidlings and landscapes in fabric)

Bonnie Pointer (One third of The Pointer Sisters)

Ian Holm (famed British actor)

Joel Schumacher (flamboyant director who helmed Batman & Robin)

Milton Glaser (famed graphic designer)

Carl Reiner (writer/actor/director and creator of The Dick Van Dyke Show)

Johnny Mandel (composer)

Hugh Downs (former Today Show host)

Ennio Morricone (Oscar-winning composer of iconic movie scores)

Charlie Daniels (Southern rock singer)

Kelly Preston (actress, and Mrs. John Travolta)

Joanna Cole (author of the The Magic School Bus books)

Regis Philbin (perennial TV show host)

John Saxon (character actor)

Olivia de Havilland (actress who appeared in Gone With The Wind— she was a whopping 104 when she died!)

Willford Brimley (actor and diabetus spokesman)

Chadwick Boseman (star of Black Panther)

Diana Rigg (British actress, star of The Avengers)

Ruth Bader Ginsburg (US Supreme Court Justice)

Helen Reddy (popular 1970s singer)

Mac Davis (another popular 1970s singer)

Eddie Van Halen (front man of rock group Van Halen)

Johnny Nash (singer of I Can See Clearly Now)

Conchata Farrell (character actress, best known for Two And A Half Men)

Rhonda Fleming (actress)

James Randi (famous debunker of fake psychics)

Sean Connery (actor, best known as the original James Bond)

Norm Crosby (night club comedian)

Alex Trebek (best known as the host of Jeopardy)

Dave Prowse (aka the body of Darth Vader)

David L. Lander (aka Squiggy of Laverne & Shirley fame)

Chuck Yeager (first man to break the sound barrier)

Tiny Lister (professional wrester/actor)

Charley Pride (one of the first black country & western singers)

John le Carre (spy novelist)

Jeremy Bulloch (aka Boba Fett)

Richard Corben (comic book artist)

Pierre Cardin (famed fashion designer)

Dawn Wells (actress, best known as Mary Ann on Gilligan's Island)

R.I.P. Jeremy Bulloch

God damn this fucking year...

This one hurts. Actor Jeremy Bulloch, aka Boba Fett, died today at age seventy five. 

 

Bulloch had a surprisingly long and busy career (mostly in England), but is most famously remembered for starring at Boba Fett in The Empire Strikes Back and Return Of The Jedi.

I've been a big fan of Boba since he first appeared in 1980. I'm not exactly sure why though, as he never did much onscreen and said even less. I think it may have been the costume I liked. And probably Bulloch's presence inside it.

I met Jeremy Bulloch at a convention in Cincinnati back in 1997. He was part of the Men Behind The Masks Tour, which featured various Star Wars actors whose faces were obscured by helmets or makeup in the films. 

 

In addition to Bulloch, the tour featured David Prowse (aka Darth Vader), Peter Mayhew (aka Chewbacca), Warwick Davis (aka Wicket The Ewok), Kenny Baker (aka R2-D2) and Michael Carter (aka Bib Fortuna). 

I remember getting an autographed photo of Bulloch and speaking with him for quite a while. He was very polite and soft spoken, patiently answering my questions that he'd no doubt heard a thousand times before. Glad I got to meet him now.

 

RIP!

R.I.P. Ron Cobb

R.I.P. Ron Cobb, who died last week at age 83. 

Cobb was a production designer and conceptual artist on many of the most important and popular sci-fi and fantasy films of the past forty years. You may not recognize his name, but you've definitely seen his work on the big screen. 

I've been a fan of Cobb's work for decades, and have spent hours devouring and studying his designs. He had a real knack for drawing bizarre creatures, but his true talent was in designing spaceships, robots and futuristic tech. Somehow his imaginary hardware looked both outlandish and believable at the same time. He taught me more than a lifetime of art classes ever could. To say he's inspired me would be an understatement, as his work has been a huge influence on mine. I'll never be a thousandth as good as he was, but that won't stop me from trying!

Born in LA in 1937, Cobb landed a job at Disney Studios in Burbank when he was just eighteen. He worked on Disney's Sleeping Beauty, leaving shortly afterward to serve in the Vietnam War. After his service, he tried his hand at a series of political cartoons for the Los Angeles Free Press and Mother Earth News.

In 1974 he worked as a designer and special effects technician on the low budget sci-fi film Dark Star. In 1977 he went on to design several alien denizens of the Cantina in Star Wars-- a move which cemented his career as a production designer. 

He also designed the ecology symbol, that was used on a flag seen in the 1970s.

Cobb's work can be seen in such films as Dark Star, Star Wars, ALIEN, Raiders Of The Lost Ark, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Conan The Barbarian, The Last Starfighter, My Science Project, Back To The Future, Robot Jox, ALIENS, The Running Man, Leviathan, The Abyss, Total Recall, True Lies, The Rocketeer, Space Truckers, Titan A.E., Timeline, The 6th Day, Firefly, District 9 and John Carter.

Here's a look at just some of Ron Cobb's amazing body of work:

Ecology Symbol: Cobb designed the Ecology logo by combinging the letters E and O, which stood for "environment" and "organism." Later on the symbol was incorporated into the green-striped Ecology Flag, which should be familiar to anyone who grew up in the 1970s.

Dark Star: Cobb designed the eponymous ship seen in the film.

Star Wars: Cobb designed several of the alien patrons of the Cantina bar, including Hammerhead (the top one), who became one of the most popular characters in the whole sequence.

ALIEN: Cobb most definitely made his mark on this film. He designed the iconic Nostromo cargo ship.

As well as various storyboards and color studies.

He designed the interiors of the ship as well.

Along with various shuttles and escape pods (some of which were used in the final film, some not).

Conan: Cobb seemed to work on quite a few of Schwarzenegger's films. Here we see his poster, icon and costume designs for Arnold's sword & sorcery opus.

The Last Starfighter: One of my all-time favorites, Cobb designed the many alien races seen in the film.

As well as the spaceships, including the Gunstar.

Back To The Future: Cobb took the existing DeLorean car and modified the exterior and interior into a time machine.

Robotjox: A guilty pleasure of mine, Cobb came up with all the mechs seen in the low-budget sci-fi action film.

ALIENS: As he did in the original, Cobb designed the various vehicles and hardware for the riveting sequel.

The Running Man: Another Arnold film! Cobb came up with the movie's many outlandish armors.

Total Recall: Yet another Arnold actioner! Cobb designed the vehicles and hardware for the mind-altering opus.

R.I.P. Ron Cobb! I'm really gonna miss his work.